Roundabout Theatre Company has announced new details about its upcoming Off-Broadway production of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical Into the Woods.
Fiasco Theater's reimagined, stripped-down staging has a cast of just 10 and a pianist. After premiering last year at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ and a subsequent production at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre, it arrives in New York to begin previews December 18 and officially open January 22, 2015. The limited engagement runs through March 22, 2015 at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre.
The production may get a publicity boost from the somewhat controversial Disney film adaptation starring Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick and Chris Pine, scheduled to open on Christmas day. Casting for the Off-Broadway production, which is directed by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, has not yet been announced.
Roundabout has a long history with Sondheim, which reached a symbolic peak shortly after the company took over the former Henry Miller's Theatre on Broadway in 2009 and renamed it the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. On that occasion, Roundabout artistic director Todd Haimes said in a statement: "Stephen Sondheim is, quite simply, an artistic genius. Perhaps no writer of musical theatre has had a greater influence on his chosen art form. We are so proud that Roundabout has had the privilege of being a theatrical home to some of Steve's greatest works."
Now here's another Sondheim show presented by Roundabout. And while a Broadway upgrade for this stripped-down production of Into the Woods seems unlikely, stranger things have happened.
